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| The Road, by Johannes Plenio from Pexels |
There were some "virtual road trips" as with virtual museum tours, as a possibility, but this summer road trips on an actual road seem to have returned.
On our 2019 trip, our first stop on the way to Maine was to see Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. Henry David Thoreau’s cabin at the pond is long gone but the 462-acre Walden Pond State Reservation can still give you a glimpse of how Thoreau’s cabin would have looked and the Thoreau Institute Library has Thoreau-related books, manuscripts, art, music, maps and correspondence.
We visited Washington Irving's Sunnyside estate some years ago and spent a wonderful autumn weekend in that part of New York state. I didn't visit Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York which is the resting place of the Headless Horseman in Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Irving lived out his last 25 years a bit south in Tarrytown, but he is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (along with Elizabeth Arden, Andrew Carnegie and William Rockefeller).
Sunnyside is in nearby Irvington. I grew up in another Irvington in New Jersey. My Jersey hometown had been called Camptown, as in the song "Camptown Races. But they wanted to shake off the religious "camp meetings" image and decided to rename the town for the popular author Washington Irving. He was invited to the new name launch. But he was a no-show. Oh well.
Another stop I have made is the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut. He moved there with his family and their new house was home until 1891. This is where he wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. While in town, we also visited Twain's neighbor at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Another kind of literary road trip is featured in an article on openculture.com that talks about an interactive map that plots out the travels of road trip-filled books, some non-fiction, others fictionalized reality.
Have you ever done a literary road trip? I have written about literary "pilgrimages" that I have made to a writer's home or grave. Last summer, I made a road trip that went to multiple literary stops. Being based in the Northeast, the trip I planned headed north from my New Jersey home into New England as we worked our way to friends who summer in Maine. We have done this before, visiting the homes of Poe, Washington Irving, Mark Twain, Hemingway and others.
On our 2019 trip, our first stop on the way to Maine was to see Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. Henry David Thoreau’s cabin at the pond is long gone but the 462-acre Walden Pond State Reservation can still give you a glimpse of how Thoreau’s cabin would have looked and the Thoreau Institute Library has Thoreau-related books, manuscripts, art, music, maps and correspondence.
Nearby, we visited the homes of Emerson, the Alcotts and the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne. We visited all their graves, mostly in the same cemetery. My wife dubbed this the "dead authors trip."
We went to Salem and did some obligatory witchcraft things, but we also visited the House of the Seven Gables.
One of my favorite authors is Herman Melville, and his Arrowhead home is in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Though he was a native New Yorker, Melville moved his family to the Berkshires in 1850 and stayed there for 13 years. It was here where he wrote Moby-Dick gazing from his writing desk window at a distant mountain that somewhat resembles a whale. We didn't follow the Melville Trail to places Melville loved in the Berkshires, including Pontoosuc Lake, Balance Rock and Mount Greylock.
When Nathaniel Hawthorne moved into Hawthorne Cottage in nearby Lenox in 1850, Melville was writing Moby-Dick and Hawthorne wrote and published The House of Seven Gables. The two writers became friends for a short time. When Melville published Moby-Dick in 1851, he dedicated the book to Hawthorne, and took Hawthorne to lunch at The Little Red Inn in the Curtis Hotel (now a retirement community!) to celebrate.
One of my favorite authors is Herman Melville, and his Arrowhead home is in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Though he was a native New Yorker, Melville moved his family to the Berkshires in 1850 and stayed there for 13 years. It was here where he wrote Moby-Dick gazing from his writing desk window at a distant mountain that somewhat resembles a whale. We didn't follow the Melville Trail to places Melville loved in the Berkshires, including Pontoosuc Lake, Balance Rock and Mount Greylock.
When Nathaniel Hawthorne moved into Hawthorne Cottage in nearby Lenox in 1850, Melville was writing Moby-Dick and Hawthorne wrote and published The House of Seven Gables. The two writers became friends for a short time. When Melville published Moby-Dick in 1851, he dedicated the book to Hawthorne, and took Hawthorne to lunch at The Little Red Inn in the Curtis Hotel (now a retirement community!) to celebrate.
We didn't get Springfield's Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum which seemed a bit too commercialized with its interactive exhibits, a recreated studio and outside sculpture garden of the author’s most famous characters.
We visited Washington Irving's Sunnyside estate some years ago and spent a wonderful autumn weekend in that part of New York state. I didn't visit Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York which is the resting place of the Headless Horseman in Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Irving lived out his last 25 years a bit south in Tarrytown, but he is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (along with Elizabeth Arden, Andrew Carnegie and William Rockefeller).
Sunnyside is in nearby Irvington. I grew up in another Irvington in New Jersey. My Jersey hometown had been called Camptown, as in the song "Camptown Races. But they wanted to shake off the religious "camp meetings" image and decided to rename the town for the popular author Washington Irving. He was invited to the new name launch. But he was a no-show. Oh well.
Another stop I have made is the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut. He moved there with his family and their new house was home until 1891. This is where he wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. While in town, we also visited Twain's neighbor at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Some people have asked me what I expect to find in these author homes. Ghosts? I don't have a good answer. I do like looking at their desks and books and papers. I liked imagining Melville gazing out his window at mountains that look a bit like a whale. I like looking out Hemingway's Key West window from his desk and wondering what story it might inspire.
On my list is still Derry, New Hampshire to Robert Frost’s grandfather's farm which he purchased for his family who lived there for 11 years. The farm was often an inspiration for his poetry, especially in his first two books. Would I find any of his poetry inspiration there? Probably not. But I find inspiration everywhere, so I'm sure a visit would lead to poems, if only about visiting his farm.
Another stop on my list is one I have meant to visit for a long time. In Amherst, Massachusetts is the home of Emily Dickinson. The Emily Dickinson Museum includes the Homestead, Dickinson’s birthplace and home, and the Evergreens, home to Dickinson’s brother and his family. I imagine I might find a ghost and some poems floating here. I can't say why.
On my list is still Derry, New Hampshire to Robert Frost’s grandfather's farm which he purchased for his family who lived there for 11 years. The farm was often an inspiration for his poetry, especially in his first two books. Would I find any of his poetry inspiration there? Probably not. But I find inspiration everywhere, so I'm sure a visit would lead to poems, if only about visiting his farm.
Another stop on my list is one I have meant to visit for a long time. In Amherst, Massachusetts is the home of Emily Dickinson. The Emily Dickinson Museum includes the Homestead, Dickinson’s birthplace and home, and the Evergreens, home to Dickinson’s brother and his family. I imagine I might find a ghost and some poems floating here. I can't say why.
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| Emily Dickinson home in Amherst, The Evergreens |
Another kind of literary road trip is featured in an article on openculture.com that talks about an interactive map that plots out the travels of road trip-filled books, some non-fiction, others fictionalized reality.
If your road trip is still virtual, then you can follow a dozen books about cross-country travel, from Mark Twain’s Roughing It (1872) to Cheryl Strayed’s Wild (2012). You can map the authors’ routes and even put one over the other and track a writer’s descriptions of the places seen.
Maybe you want to do a Beat Generation On the Road trip like Jack Kerouac from NYC to San Francisco with stops along the way in Denver and Mexico City. You could also follow Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters through California, Canada and Mexico, or a Wild hike or Steinbeck Travels with Charley.
Maybe you want to do a Beat Generation On the Road trip like Jack Kerouac from NYC to San Francisco with stops along the way in Denver and Mexico City. You could also follow Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters through California, Canada and Mexico, or a Wild hike or Steinbeck Travels with Charley.
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